Top Highlights

• an absence so severe it manifests as a malign presence
• Searching for a better description of this rotting sadness, I came upon the concept of acedia. In Christian theology, it’s an antecedent to sloth, the least sexy of the seven deadly sins. Thomas Aquinas winnowed it down for me: acedia is sorrow so complete that the flesh prevails completely over the spirit. You don’t just turn your back on the worl...
• But your old life doesn’t just fall away from you like a snake shedding its skin. You carry it with you everywhere you go.
• But if I blow out my knees, I blow out my knees. Better my knees end early from overuse than my life end early from underuse.